Legend has it that if you put a dead hard drive in a freezer, pull it out and plug it in, it should run long enough to recover the data. Is it true? Indeed, it seems so.

While freezing the drive for a while extends life momentarily, the real trick is to run the hard drive while it’s in the freezer. Just throw in a water tight bag first, of course. Works pretty well with other gadgets including iPod hard drives too.

Evidence:

• Two techs encounter an uncooperative drive, this is their epic recovery story.
• More stories of how freezing a hard drive brought it back from the dead.

Note, this only temporarily extends the life of the device, allowing you to recover data before it completely dies.

More Hard Drive Hacks:

1. Encrypt your Entire Hard Drive
2. Salvage Rare Magnets from a Hard Drive
3. Recover lost Hard Drive Partitions